DuoPre Preamps: Less Noise, More Gain

Allen & Heath designed their DuoPre mic pres with a two-stage design to dish out up to 69 dB of gain. This hearty helping of clean gain is distributed evenly around the ZED-24's gain controls, making it easy for you to set your input trims. When you plug into a channel's line-level input, you're automatically plugged into the second stage of the preamp, resulting in less noise. These preamps are the basis of a great-sounding board!

Lots of I/O to Run the Show

Sixteen mic/line inputs with DuoPre mic preamps and 3-band EQ handle your microphones and DI boxes while offering tons of headroom and distortion-free sound. Four stereo line inputs offer a main stereo input on jack sockets with additional inputs from RCA sockets or from the USB audio input. You can assign the USB return to one of the extra inputs, so that it feeds either the main LR bus or the stereo channel. And all of the 16 mono channels and 4 stereo channels have smooth 100mm faders.

USB Convenience

Connect the mixer to a PC or Mac via USB and you have a simple way to get 44.1-48 kHz/16-bit audio to and from your computer for recording, playback, and mixing with external FX. The ZED-24 comes bundled with Cakewalk Sonar LE, powerful music-production software for multitrack recording, editing, working with effects, and more. When you pair the ZED mixer with a laptop or desktop computer, you've got everything you need to make music right away.

Product Description

The Allen and Heath ZED-24 has a fantastic pedigree which comes from nearly 40 years of making mixing desks for the professional sound community. The audio circuitry is based on years of continual development and refinement and the performance of all the elements within the mixer is has been perfected to ensure the very best sound quality possible.

This is a mixer for anyone, from entry-level to professionals, who appreciates fantastic sound, rugged build quality and imaginative feature sets. It'll be equally happy running your gig on stage, recording live or mixing down in your studio at home.

Allen and Heath has teamed up with major software supplier, Cakewalk, to bundle its Sonar LE music creation and audio production software with ZED, giving you a fantastic, high spec digital audio workstation.

What's great about the ZED-24

The feature-set is incredibly advanced for a mixer at this level - it has 23 independent sources to the mix, 10 independent outputs, 4 aux sends, a USB send and return for PC or Mac recording, playback and effects, a unique dual stereo input capability and some very advanced monitoring facilities. In fact, ZED-24 is so packed full of great features that you'd think it would cost much, much more!

It can be used for many different tasks, whether in live performance, utilizing plug-in effects via USB, live recording via USB and Cakewalk, studio recording or mixing down to produce your own 2-track recordings.

What about the sound quality? Our chief designer, Mike Griffin, has been at the forefront of audio innovation for many years and has developed the designs for our spectacularly successful MixWizard and GL series professional live mixers. Mike is always striving to produce the best possible sound for our mixers, and for ZED has produced the 'DuoPre(tm)', a mic preamplifier which sounds as sweet as a nut, as pure as the driven snow. The DuoPre combines an optimised line input circuit together with the microphone preamp circuit so that it will not colour or distort your sound, will give you lots of headroom and give you a truly professional feel.

Inputs

One of the great things about the ZED series is the number and variety of things you can plug in. In addition to the sixteen mono channels there are four stereo channels, each with a main stereo input on jack sockets, and with the ability to take additional stereo inputs from phono sockets or from the USB audio input, flexibility gives you control. In all, ZED-24 boasts 129 different controls on its front panel -- way more than any of the competition! 16 mic/line channels are provided on ZED-24 -- plenty for mics or DI boxes for larger bands or demanding applications requiring more inputs than the ZED-14. 4 stereo line inputs, 3 with dual inputs. All inputs have independent gain control.

16 DuoPre Mic Preamps

Based on the proven preamps from the hugely successful PA series, the ZED series has DuoPre preamps, which use a two-stage design with carefully controlled amounts of gain in each stage. When amplifying the signal from the XLR input, the gain range is huge -- 69dB of range to be exact -- and is very evenly distributed around the gain control, meaning better control of signal level. Most of the gain comes from the first stage, so unwanted noise is kept to a minimum. Line level signals are simply plugged into the second stage of the pre-amp by using the line input jack socket, which has the great advantage of less noise when using the line input.

Auxiliary sends

4 aux sends are provided, of which 1&2 are prefade for foldback monitoring, and 3 & 4 post-fade for effects sends. A stereo signal can be sent from auxes via USB to computer to create 2 separate record feeds independent of the main LR mix (1&2) and or used as FX sends (3&4).

USB audio flexibility

Getting audio to and from a computer easily is now a common requirement for live sound and music production. The way we have implemented this on ZED is super-flexible and super-easy! No longer do you need to fiddle around the back of your PC to get to the soundcard inputs, only to find that the levels are all wrong and noisy. Just plug in a USB lead to your ZED, select the USB routing on the mixer and the device on your computer and that's it! Quality audio to and from your PC or Mac. Three switches provide different send/return configurations for recording, playback and utilising external FX.

Build

At this level, most mixers are built using a single, flat PCB with all the pots and switches attached at right angles. ZED-24 utilises individual vertically mounted channel circuit boards with each rotary control fixed with a metal nut to the front panel - making a much more robust product that will resist damage and give years of reliable use. ZED also has professional 100mm faders for ultimate control over your levels.

Sonar LE - provided Free!

We have teamed up with Cakewalk to bundle Sonar LE with this ZED mixer. The two team up together in many ways - for example straightforward recording of a stereo mix, recording tracks individually to build up a song, or for inserting a Sonar LE effects plug-in.

zZounds has verified that this customer bought this product from us.
" Allen and Heath ZED24 24-Channel Mixer "

Overall:
When WNJR-Newark.com - America's Favorite Online Radio Station needed a commercial grade analog mixing solution at the right price, our decision became clear once we discovered zzounds.com and the Allen and Heath ZED24 24-Channel Mixer with USB Interface. The Allen and Heath ZED24 24-Channel Mixer delivers with a clean, uncomplicated interface, clean equalization in a rotary board and so much more. Connecting stereo and mono components are as easy as 1, 2, 3, and the ZED24 24-Channel Mixer's sleek look is the perfect fit in any studio. We are so satisfied with this product, we purchased a second board for our 24/7 online Gospel station. - Randy Parker, CEO

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"AWESOME.."

Sound:
the sound quality is the best i have owned..i am a powered mixer kinda guy..so i was hesitant to invest in a non powered mixer. but now im glad i did..powered by a ceown xti2000 the sound is rich clear and perfect
Feature:
usb connectivity was so important..the zed24 fullfillrd all my expectations and then some...
Ease of Use:
its so easy to hookup and run my 14 yr. old son can set it up for a 7 pc band..
Value:
for the price it looks great it sounds great...
Manufacturer Support:
nope...
The Wow Factor:
a perfect 10
Overall:
i would replace it quickly with another zed24

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